73085 - History of Contemporary Philosophy (2) (LM)

Learning outcomes

The course History of Contemporary Philosophy 2 focuses on expanding and deepening the range of issues addressed in History of Contemporary Philosophy 1. Through close reading of texts and active student engagement in commentary and interpretation, the course will revisit key themes that have shaped twentieth-century philosophical culture. The aim is to foster the acquisition of suitable tools for understanding some of the major works of our time, thereby enhancing critical thinking and philosophical awareness.

Course contents

Genesis and Structure of Philosophical Systems II.

Sense and Difference: Martial Gueroult and Gilles Deleuze

 

Having examined in the first module the philosophical laboratory in which a history of philosophy takes shape – conceived, in Martial Gueroult’s words, as a “history and technology of philosophical systems” – the second module aims to reconstruct the historical and theoretical grounds of Gilles Deleuze’s critical engagement with structuralism. This engagement brings together the structural method and the French epistemological tradition (Bachelard, Cavaillès, Lautman) in the redefinition of the history of philosophy as an open, relational system – one that seeks to rethink its categories in light of new interpretive models of the world offered by the sciences and the results of their technical applications. Diagram, multiplicity, the virtual, the actual, order, chaos, sense, difference: it is within this conceptual constellation that the contours emerge of an impersonal form of historical-rational thought, one that challenges metaphysics of substance and the subject. This approach reconfigures the historiography of classical philosophical systems, notably through a renewed engagement with the Spinozist category of substance.

By analyzing Deleuze’s interventions on the relationship between structuralism and the history of philosophy, alongside selected readings from Difference and Repetition, the course will outline the contours of a crisis in the model of universality—one that no longer applies to the practice of philosophy or to the thematization of its history. In its place, a philosophy of relations and complexity is formulated, as the only mode of thought capable of meeting the challenges of contemporary thought.

Readings/Bibliography

Required Reading (for attending and non-attending students)

 

Monografic Course

• Martial Gueroult, Storia e tecnologia dei sistemi filosofici, Napoli, Orthotes 2024 (pagine scelte).

• Gilles Deleuze, L’isola deserta e altri scritti. Testi e interviste 1953-1974, Torino, Einaudi, 2007 (now also available from Orthotes Napoli, 2022):

• Spinoza e il metodo generale di Martial Gueroult, pp. 181-194.
• Da che cosa si riconosce lo strutturalismo?, pp. 214-243.

• Gilles Deleuze, Differenza e ripetizione, Milano, Raffaello Cortina Editore, 1997 (pagine scelte).

 

Studies

Two texts of your choice:

G. Rametta, Dianoematica e storia della filosofia in Martial Gueroult, in Storia e tecnologia dei sistemi filosofici, Napoli, Orthotes 2024, pp. 173-203.

D. Donna, I diagrammi della filosofia. Una storia eretica della filosofia contemporanea in Francia, Modena, Mucchi, 2024.

A. Colombo, Immanenza e molteplicità. Gilles Deleuze e le matematiche del Novecento, Milano, Mimesis, 2023.

F. Domenicali, P. Vignola, Deleuze. Filosofia di una vita, Carocci, Roma, 2023.

R. Ronchi, Gilles Deleuze. Credere nel reale, Milano, Feltrinelli, 2025.

Teaching methods

The course combines lectures by the instructor with active student participation. It is structured around sessions based on shared reading and open dialogue.
A series of seminars will also take place as part of the course, featuring contributions from national and international scholars. Times and locations will be announced shortly on the course webpage.

Assessment methods

The attendance of the entire course corresponds to 6 credits. The programme is unique for both attending and non-attending students.

The oral examination takes place in the teacher's studio and tends to verify:

1. the historical-philosophical knowledge acquired through attendance at the lessons, the study of the basic texts and the relative bibliography
2. the degree of understanding and critical reworking of the proposed content
3. expressive skills and the ability to orient oneself among the main lines of interpretation

Attendance is considered relevant both to the learning process and to the assessment.

Exam registration is available through the ALMAESAMI platform. The dates of each exam session are published on the Professor’s webpage.

 

Verification criteria
30 cum laude: excellent proof, for solidity of knowledge and critical processing skills

30: excellent proof, adequate knowledge and expressive richness

27-29: good proof, satisfactory knowledge, correct expression

24-26: discrete proof, non-exhaustive and partially correct knowledge

21-23: sufficient proof, general knowledge, confused expression

18-21: barely sufficient proof. Poor articulation and relevant theoretical gaps

<18: insufficient proof, missing or incomplete knowledge, lack of guidance in the argument.

 

Students with disabilities and Specific Learning Disorders (SLD)

Persons with specific learning disabilities (SLD) or temporary or permanent disabilities are advised to contact the University Office in charge in a timely manner (https://site.unibo.it/studenti-con-disabilita-e-dsa/en ). The office will take care of proposing any necessary accommodations to the individuals concerned. These accommodations must, however, be submitted at least 15 days in advance for approval by the course instructor, who will assess their appropriateness in relation to the learning objectives of the course.

Teaching tools

A collection of texts will be made available to articulate the debate on the legacy of the debate on systems in the history of modern and contemporary philosophy.

Office hours

See the website of Diego Donna